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Why Tom Stoppard Is Driving Himself ‘Daft and Furious’ During the Hit Broadway Run of ‘Leopoldstadt’

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variety.com

Gordon Cox Theater Editor Celebrated playwright Tom Stoppard has a Broadway success on his hands with “Leopoldstadt,” his (very) loosely autobiographical play now in the sixth month of a long run currently set to close in July.

He’s very pleased about that — but right now there’s something else that’s got him thoroughly distressed: Writer’s block. Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below: “I’m driving myself daft and furious and upset because I can’t find a play I want to write,” Stoppard said on Stagecraft, Variety’s theater podcast. “I’m a much happier person if I’m writing, and for the last several months I’ve been failing, despite a very self conscious attempt to find a play to write.” He added, “Don’t send me one.

That never works.” While he’s casting about for his next subject, he can at least enjoy the fact that “Leopoldstadt” is having the kind of lengthy run that it didn’t get in London, where its West End premiere in 2020 was interrupted by the COVID-19 lockdown. “When we were still in the early days in London and one thought ahead to New York, it was with a sense that New York might actually be the natural home for this play,” Stoppard said. “There’s a deep feeling among the people who come up to me to talk, and to the actors very much so, that they connect with this play in this town in a more intense way than I experienced in London.” “Leopoldstadt,” about a prosperous Jewish family in Vienna confronting the rise of antisemitism during the first half of the 20th century, arrived on Broadway with particular political resonance as, in 2023, antisemitism has become increasingly prominent in the headlines — and even on Broadway itself.

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